Getting Started with ASP.NET MVC Tab Control

8 Nov 202312 minutes to read

This section briefly explains about how to include ASP.NET MVC Tab control in your ASP.NET MVC application using Visual Studio.

Prerequisites

System requirements for ASP.NET MVC controls

Create ASP.NET MVC application with HTML helper

Install ASP.NET MVC package in the application

To add ASP.NET MVC controls in the application, open the NuGet package manager in Visual Studio (Tools → NuGet Package Manager → Manage NuGet Packages for Solution), search for Syncfusion.EJ2.MVC5 and then install it.

Install-Package Syncfusion.EJ2.MVC5 -Version 25.1.35

NOTE

Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC controls are available in nuget.org. Refer to NuGet packages topic to learn more about installing NuGet packages in various OS environments. The Syncfusion.EJ2.MVC5 NuGet package has dependencies, Newtonsoft.Json for JSON serialization and Syncfusion.Licensing for validating Syncfusion license key.

NOTE

If you create ASP.NET MVC application with MVC4 package, search for Syncfusion.EJ2.MVC4 and then install it.

Add namespace

Add Syncfusion.EJ2 namespace reference in Web.config under Views folder.

<namespaces>
    <add namespace="Syncfusion.EJ2"/>
</namespaces>

Add stylesheet and script resources

Here, the theme and script is referred using CDN inside the <head> of ~/Pages/Shared/_Layout.cshtml file as follows,

<head>
    ...
    <!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC controls styles -->
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/25.1.35/fluent.css" />
    <!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC controls scripts -->
    <script src="https://cdn.syncfusion.com/ej2/25.1.35/dist/ej2.min.js"></script>
</head>

NOTE

Checkout the Themes topic to learn different ways (CDN, NPM package, and CRG) to refer styles in ASP.NET MVC application, and to have the expected appearance for Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC controls. Checkout the Adding Script Reference topic to learn different approaches for adding script references in your ASP.NET MVC application.

Register Syncfusion script manager

Also, register the script manager EJS().ScriptManager() at the end of <body> in the ~/Pages/Shared/_Layout.cshtml file as follows.

<body>
...
    <!-- Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC Script Manager -->
    @Html.EJS().ScriptManager()
</body>

Add ASP.NET MVC Tab control

Now, add the Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC Tab control in ~/Views/Home/Index.cshtml page.

@using Syncfusion.EJ2.Navigations;

@(Html.EJS().Tab("ej2Tab")
    .Items(new List<TabItem> {
        new TabItem { Header = ViewBag.headerText0, Content = "Twitter is an online social networking service that enables users to send and read short 140-character messages called tweets. Registered users can read and post tweets, but those who are unregistered can only read them. Users access Twitter through the website interface, SMS or mobile device app Twitter Inc. is based in San Francisco and has more than 25 offices around the world. Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass and launched in July 2006. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with more than 100 million users posting 340 million tweets a day in 2012.The service also handled 1.6 billion search queries per day." },
        new TabItem { Header = ViewBag.headerText1, Content = "Facebook is an online social networking service headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Its website was launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg with his Harvard College roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.The founders had initially limited the website's membership to Harvard students, but later expanded it to colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities and later to high-school students." },
        new TabItem { Header = ViewBag.headerText2, Content = "WhatsApp Messenger is a proprietary cross-platform instant messaging client for smartphones that operates under a subscription business model. It uses the Internet to send text messages, images, video, user location and audio media messages to other users using standard cellular mobile numbers. As of February 2016, WhatsApp had a user base of up to one billion,[10] making it the most globally popular messaging application. WhatsApp Inc., based in Mountain View, California, was acquired by Facebook Inc. on February 19, 2014, for approximately US$19.3 billion." }
    })
    .HeightAdjustMode(HeightStyles.Auto)
    .OverflowMode(OverflowMode.Popup)
    .Render()
)

<style>
    #container {
        visibility: hidden;
    }

    #loader {
        color: #008cff;
        height: 40px;
        left: 45%;
        position: absolute;
        top: 45%;
        width: 30%;
    }

    .e-content .e-item {
        font-size: 12px;
        margin: 10px;
        text-align: justify;
    }

    .container {
        min-width: 350px;
        max-width: 500px;
        margin: 0 auto;
    }
</style>
public ActionResult Index()
{
    ViewBag.headerText0 = new TabHeader { Text = "Twitter" };
    ViewBag.headerText1 = new TabHeader { Text = "Facebook" };
    ViewBag.headerText2 = new TabHeader { Text = "Whatsapp" };
    return View();
}

Press Ctrl+F5 (Windows) or ⌘+F5 (macOS) to run the app. Then, the Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC Tab control will be rendered in the default web browser.

ASP.NET MVC Tab Control

Initialize the Tab using JSON items collection

The Tab can be rendered by defining a JSON array. The item is rendered with header text and content for each Tab.

@using Syncfusion.EJ2.Navigations;
@model List<TabTabItem>

@Html.EJS().Tab("ej2Tab").Items(Model).Render()

<style>
    .e-content .e-item {
        font-size: 12px;
        margin: 10px;
        text-align: justify;
    }
</style>
public ActionResult Index()
{
  List<TabTabItem> items = new List<TabTabItem>();
  items.Add(new TabTabItem { Header = new TabHeader { Text = "Twitter" }, Content = "Twitter is an online social networking service that enables users to send and read short 140-character messages called 'tweets'. Registered users can read and post tweets, but those who are unregistered can only read them. Users access Twitter through the website interface, SMS or mobile device app Twitter Inc. is based in San Francisco and has more than 25 offices around the world. Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass and launched in July 2006. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with more than 100 million users posting 340 million tweets a day in 2012.The service also handled 1.6 billion search queries per day." });
  items.Add(new TabTabItem { Header = new TabHeader { Text = "Facebook" }, Content = "Facebook is an online social networking service headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Its website was launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg with his Harvard College roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.The founders had initially limited the website's membership to Harvard students, but later expanded it to colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities and later to high-school students." });
  items.Add(new TabTabItem { Header = new TabHeader { Text = "Whatsapp" }, Content = "WhatsApp Messenger is a proprietary cross-platform instant messaging client for smartphones that operates under a subscription business model. It uses the Internet to send text messages, images, video, user location and audio media messages to other users using standard cellular mobile numbers. As of February 2016, WhatsApp had a user base of up to one billion,[10] making it the most globally popular messaging application. WhatsApp Inc., based in Mountain View, California, was acquired by Facebook Inc. on February 19, 2014, for approximately US$19.3 billion." });
  return View(items);
}

Initialize the Tab using HTML elements

The Tab control can be rendered based on the given HTML element using id as target. Header section must be enclosed with in a wrapper element using e-tab-header class and corresponding content must be mapped with e-content class.

You need to follow the below structure of HTML elements to render the Tab,

  <div id='ej2Tab'>   --> Root Tab element
    <div class="e-tab-header">      --> Tab header
       <div>   --> Header Item
       </div>
    </div>
    <div class="e-content">      --> Tab content
       <div>   --> Content Item
       </div>
    </div>
  </div>
  • Add the HTML template data with its id attribute and add it in your index.cshtml file to initialize the Tab.
<div id="ej2Tab">
    <div class="e-tab-header">
        <div>Twitter </div>
        <div>Facebook </div>
        <div>WhatsApp </div>
    </div>
    <div class="e-content">
        <div>
            Twitter is an online social networking service that enables users to send and read short 140-character messages called 'tweets'. Registered users can read and post tweets, but those who are unregistered can only read them. Users access Twitter through the website interface, SMS or mobile device app Twitter Inc. is based in San Francisco and has more than 25 offices around the world. Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass and launched in July 2006. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with more than 100 million users posting 340 million tweets a day in 2012.The service also handled 1.6 billion search queries per day.
        </div>
        <div>
            Facebook is an online social networking service headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Its website was launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg with his Harvard College roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.The founders had initially limited the website's membership to Harvard students, but later expanded it to colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities and later to high-school students.
        </div>
        <div>
            WhatsApp Messenger is a proprietary cross-platform instant messaging client for smartphones that operates under a subscription business model. It uses the Internet to send text messages, images, video, user location and audio media messages to other users using standard cellular mobile numbers. As of February 2016, WhatsApp had a user base of up to one billion,[10] making it the most globally popular messaging application. WhatsApp Inc., based in Mountain View, California, was acquired by Facebook Inc. on February 19, 2014, for approximately US$19.3 billion.
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

<style>
    .e-content .e-item {
        font-size: 12px;
        padding: 10px;
        text-align: justify;
    }
</style>


<script type="text/javascript">
    var tabObj = new ej.navigations.Tab({
        heightAdjustMode: "Auto"
    });
    tabObj.appendTo('#ej2Tab');
</script>

NOTE

View Sample in GitHub.

See also